I belong to Ancestry also and what you can find there is hard to find other places, so it’s my “guilty pleasure”. I pay every three months so in case I decide to quit, I won’t have so much invested.
For free resources, I have found http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ invaluable. I use the “Family Tree” search quite often and anyone can use it, but always verify info as in all net searches due to conflicting info in the “trees”.
Genealogy is so addictive!...but I’ve been quite pleased to find on both sides of my family that we arrived in this country quite early...mid-1600’s....part of that Scot-Irish/English that populated the south.
I agree. I can spend 3, 4, 5 hours a day on it for 3, 4 or 5 days, take a break for a week or 10 days and then do it all over again. :~) It may be taking me longer because I'm not paying for a membership, but I find it fun, with the various tricks I've discovered to find info I rarely get stuck for long and there are only a couple of mystery people still on my list.